According to the weatherman, our cool clear weather is about to take a turn towards the cloudy and rainy. I always loved rainy days as a kid, even though my mother made me wear hideously ugly rain boots (which I always ditched as soon as I was out of sight). As an adult, that love of rain is diminished somewhat by the hazards of driving on rain-slicked roads. On the positive side, the green and growing things in the yard will definitely appreciate the rain, as will the weeds that will inevitably sprout soon thereafter.
A rainy day (or rainy weekend) seems like the perfect time to do some writing, and what better way to start than with a little Random Word Improv.
Care to join me?
Whether your skies are clear and bright or full of rain clouds a few minutes of Random Word Improv are a great way to have a little fun and get some words on the page. I’ll be trying to fit in some writing sprints in the afternoon while I wait for the rain-gutter repairman. Feel free to start on today’s words without me.
Ready?
For any of you new to Random Word Improv, here’s how we play:
- Pick as many words from the list as you want
- Write the first line(s) of a story (or a whole mini-story) incorporating your words
- Post your results in the comments section.
All right, let’s get started. Here are today’s randomly selected rainy-day inspired random words – can’t wait to see what stories you find hidden in this word list.
Soggy downpour umbrella boots
Glisten slippery breeze puddle
Slick droplet rivulet ominous
Rainbow mud clouds duckling
Are you ready? Go!
*whistling aimlessly while you are off being creative*
Back already? Can’t wait to read what you’ve come up with.
Happy writing to all.
Eight Ladies Writing 
Sorry, late to the party. 😀
Forces of Nature
April kicked the rubber duckling from the puddle to the side of the road. Her good deed for the day. It’s slick ducky smile glistened, mocking her from the mud, as she proceeded down the slippery road towards school,
She sighed as the droplets of water from the present downpour ran rivulets of rainwater down the seams of her soggy sweater, straight into her boots. She looked up through the pointless plastic umbrella that couldn’t keep a small squirrel dry in a desert.
The clouds continued to look ominous to the west, but there was one of those lone streaks of sunlight that broke through up ahead- either pointing the way or flipping her off, she wasn’t sure. Just as she proceeded to put her head down, a light, gentle breeze came to her, surrounding her and lifting her chin gently to look up again. This time there was a rainbow. Better, it was reflected a hundred times over as it mirrored itself in each and every raindrop on her umbrella. Sometimes it sucked to be Mother Nature’s daughter. Sometimes it was rainbows, and she was still looking for that darned unicorn.
Nice, Penny. I love the image of the rainbow reflected in all the raindrops.
Ooh, pretty, Penny. Perfect for the word prompts, and for the weather right now.
It took me a few to come up with something….there was a lot of moisture in that batch of words to cram into a small space. 😀
Oh, nice! Even goddesses have problems . . . . I really like the pointing the way or flipping her off phrase. Omens are so totally like that, aren’t they? If we could figure them out, maybe they’d be useful, LOL.
P.S., not late to the party at all! Right on time! I had a very busy weekend, full of sun, but this morning is gloomy and perfect for this sort of thing. We’ll have rain by noon.
Didn’t quite get all the words, but here is this week’s entry:
———————-
The Rainbow Youth Foundation gala was the highlight of the local social season. It was a chance to get all dressed up, dance, and drink Redwood Valley Vineyard’s best champagne, all while supporting a worthy cause.
Holding an event this time of year was always a gamble; Mother Nature seemed to like nothing better than to set off an icy downpour just as the guests began to arrive. Long-time attendees accessorized their suits and gowns with designer boots, umbrellas, and slickers befitting a black tie event.
When the day started off with clear skies and a slight breeze, I was hopeful that this year would be an exception to the norm. The ominous afternoon clouds and accumulation of puddles put an end to that fantasy, making my chances of getting to the ballroom without muddy shoes or soggy curls something between slim and none.
Normally, I wouldn’t care about a little rain, but Nick Cooper was going to be at tonight’s event and I wanted to make a good impression. The feminine half of the local population had been trying to catch him ever since he moved back to town, but he was a slippery one and remained free despite their best efforts.
Tonight, was my turn and I was pretty confident of my success; after all, we’d been married for years.
Sure we were 5 at the time and the wedding ring was a blue fruit-loop, but still. Tommy Wilson officiated the playground ceremony, by virtue of his experience as an altar boy, and though I was a bit of an ugly duckling, Nick told me I was the prettiest girl he knew.
He’d been my Prince Charming back then. Now it was time to collect on that happily-ever after he’d promised.
Never mind the missing words – fabulous, fun story promise, Elizabeth 😀 . I want to know what happened next. Nick is toast, right?
Absolutely!
I feel jilted, like we just got started on an interesting story and then we got caught in the rain. 😀 Nice.
Sorry about the jolting, Penny. I’ll see what I can do about that later this afternoon.
LOL, if this turns out to be a full-bloomed story, I want to read it! As it is, a perfect scene has been set. (-: In my school, the fake marriages were in sixth-grade, behind a church near the school. Danny was always the Reverend, IIRC, and he was the most adorable, charming boy . . . . I wonder where he is now.
Part 2
I didn’t need to see him to know the instant Nick arrived at the Gala; the intake of breath and laser-like attention of at least half-the attendees was a pretty clear indication.
I turned to look and there he was in the doorway in all his chiseled good-looks, raindrops glistening in his dark hair and wearing a tailored tux that was definitely not off the rack.
Good thing he wasn’t part of the bachelor auction later in the evening; none of the others would stand a chance, though we’d certainly reach our fundraising goal.
Resisting the urge to body-check them out of the way, I bided my time, letting the other hopefuls buzzing around him wear themselves out before making my move.
Not long after the dancing started I was talking to Mayor Richards when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and there was Nick, with the look he always had as a kid when he was completely focused on something. I was glad I’d splurged on the new gown and let Mary Beth transform my usual unruly curls into something resembling a sophisticated style.
“My dance,” Nick said as he reached for my hand. “I believe we have some unfinished business to take care of.”
The night suddenly became a lot more interesting.
AW, swoon! Nothing like a handsome man in a tux! And apparently, a woman in an evening gown is also a force to be reckoned with. (-: I’m grinning like an idiot!
It was like a fucking MGM musical out there – you could almost see lithe white men in white trousers and yellow boots kicking up their heels in the puddles, twirling their umbrellas in the downpour, with every droplet of manufactured rain glistening like diamonds on the silver screen. But this was no silver screen, and while the drought-weary inhabitants of Dollar City rejoiced in the rivulets and the mud, Sadie Dawkins peered at the clouds with worry. She’d calculated a small thunderstorm for half an hour, with appropriate lightening to jazz up the scene. But she must have miscalculated the dryness of the air, for half of the droplets evaporated before they hit the ground. There was enough water to fool the laypeople out there, who were happy as long as they were slick and soggy. But her colleagues on the Weather Board would not be fooled by a slippery slope. She felt like a duckling about to be shot on a fairground range. Ominously, the rainbow appeared, a full five minutes ahead of schedule, and the rain was gone as soon as it came. She had some explaining to do to the Board.
Nice, Michaeline. Leaves me wanting to know more about Sadie and what happens next.
I might do something with this. I grew up in Nebraska, and so I know a little about drought. During the late 1800s, there were a lot of “scientists” who would go from town to town, trying to make it rain (there was some theory about seeding the clouds with gunpowder from fireworks, IIRC, and when I was a kid, it was still a kind of urban myth). Weathermakers really capture my imagination (-:.
But first, a good hard try at the WIP. I can come back to this.
Michaeline, the idea about seeding clouds with gunpowder reminds me of one of the theories I read about the Battle of Waterloo. The weather, which was forecasted to be clear all week, was a rainy mess, caused some explained, by all of the cannons and guns. Interesting to know if there could be any scientific basis for that.
This is a little bit on the nutty side of the internet, but here are several midwest rainmakers mentioned. This post seems to date the “science” to the 1890s, but who knows? https://climateviewer.com/2014/03/25/history-cloud-seeding-pluviculture-hurricane-hacking/